Whatever He Says

We relaxed, some of us in the wingback recliners, with feet up;  others sinking into the welcoming, cushiony golden leather of the couch. Lamps softly lit the big room at the back of our house where a small group of our friends gets together weekly for dinner and a chat.  We call it "cell group," because in our faith, the analogy of "the body" is used for a church community.  So we are a small part of a body, a "cell;" in other words we're just a group of friends who love one another and enjoy getting together. And we encourage each other in life and faith. Last night we were on our second week of studying a book by  Royal Hamel . The book is called,  Unmuzzle Your Inner Sheep . It's about freeing yourself to share faith--not about putting yourself out to graze!  We're enjoying the conversation the book has prompted. We talked about the struggle between obeying the "Great Commission" to share the good news of Jesus' li...

By Belinda It's the weekend, the sun is shining brightly with the promise of spring coming soon, and at many intersections, I notice that colourful signs are stuck into the banks of  mud mixed with snow , pointing passersby to the many new housing developments being built in the communities surrounding ours. As I drove to church this morning, I passed one such sign, pointing towards the town in which we bought our first home, and it made me think of how much I didn't want to leave there when Paul felt "moved to move" closer to his place of work nearly 30 years ago.  Looking back, I am so glad that we did move back then. Even though that particular move felt like a bit of a disaster for the first few months, it was all part of God's plan to move us into position for the next step in his life plan for us. And that made me think of all the places I didn't want to leave and that I now would not want to go back to; there have been quite a few! One of my chi...

By Belinda Robins hop in the street and we feel ridiculously excited; mud puddles shrink smaller every day; the sterile, black-brown of winter tree bark gives way to the faintest flush of green and pink life--as if a resuscitation is under way! Another long Canadian winter-kingdom of icy cold yields to the irrepressible, insistent usurper: Spring! Spring: the emblem of of Hope When All Seems Lost; when a vision is sealed in a stone cold tomb and dead. Spring is a reminder to trust in certainties based on trust not evidence; to trust in a promise. The endless cycle of the seasons replicates the cycles of life and carries a message of hope and faith. Each fall I can't help it, I mourn for summer too quickly gone like an insatiable lover for her beloved. August comes and the first tinges of scarlet and gold in trees that still shimmer greenly lush in summer heat. "Too soon!" cries my heart. I grieve the passing year as the cars come down the highway from cottage co...

By Belinda Down the centre of the long, oval pine table stood a line of scented candles, warming the room with their soft flickering glow. The coffee pot gurgled and snorted like a disgruntled steam engine as it produced a fragrant brew. And refreshments lay out on the table: Christmas cake, boterkoek and truffles. The house and I were ready...just waiting for the sound of stamping feet and opening door. In the to and fro of recent conversations about God, we four had been grappling with concepts, seeking to understand some things better and learning how to apply truths grasped. When I listened to a CD in a set I'd bought Pete for Christmas, it so resonated with what we'd been talking about that a week or so ago, I invited them all over to listen to it with me on the first day after the Christmas weekend that we were free. The CD set I gave Pete was Great Books Everyone Should Know: A Practical Guide to 12 Timeless Classics  by Dr. Ken Boa. He is such a good teacher and so ...

By Belinda (shared with Lesley-Ann's permission) Tonight I opened my Daily Light on the Daily Path for October 6th  to write the name of a new baby on the top of the page. I gasped as I read the scripture verses written there. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you the whole story, from beginning to--well, hardly the end, but rather another new beginning. Lesley-Ann is one of the managers on my team, and dear to my heart as they all are. We are much more than working colleagues. She came to the cell group at our house for a while and our relationship deepened with the months and years of working together.  We were at her wedding when she got married to Jason, a man with the smilingest eyes you ever saw, and a heart to match. They both have big hearts in fact, and as well as a house full of dogs, they have freely shared their home with others from the start. They were naturals as potential parents and they looked forward to welcoming babies into their household. ...

By Belinda I was on my way to a meeting and rather late having gone to the wrong location to begin with, when the traffic slowed to a standstill. Up ahead I could see the flashing lights of a police car at the scene of an accident. Slowly, from far down the line, cars pulled out and turned around, while some waited hopefully to be able to continue on their way. I decided to join those pulling out and find another route. I didn't have time to wait indefinitely. I followed a car down the next rural route going west, and then turned north, the direction I needed to go in. Across the fields I could see the line up we had been in moments before, standing as still as ever. The road I was on, ran on a curve though, and a few minutes later, I was practically on the scene of the accident, from a different angle. Clusters of people from the neighbourhood had gathered to watch as firefighters and emergency personnel worked and a news reporter was on the scene with his camera. Obv...

Weekend Post By Belinda I'm picking up the baton from Susan, who posted on Friday about the gala we both attended on Tuesday evening. It was such an incredibly wonderful evening that I wanted to a little of it here. Susan described journalist Brian Stewart's speech brilliantly. He is such a gifted writer that to listen to him speak was a treat. What he had to say was profound; how he said it was to the ears, what a Tom Thompson painting is to the eyes. Brian spoke of a faith rediscovered; that began to grow out of the truth he was witnessing that for all the evil and darkness in the world, there was human altruism, "Quite simply the most stunning thing I have seen as a journalist," he said. "Surprisingly, Christian faith was more powerful than anything else; mysterious and strong; the greatest mystery on earth." His journey of faith, he said, was "a continuum over years." He came reluctantly, moving from outsider and cynic, to admirer and "wa...

"I have lived two completely different lives thus far," he said. He was only in his thirties--was he talking about a career change maybe? No; it was something far deeper; he was trying hard to express the difference an encounter with Christ had made in his life. Imagine what it would take to change a man's view of women; his perspective on money and, in fact, the whole path of his life. Something profoundly real and good would have to happen to have that much power. Stories like his are the greatest evidence for the reality of God. When a person starts to tell me his or her faith story, I get ready for something wonderful. Eyes fill with tears, hands reach for tissues, hearts spill over with a gratitude that is hard to express and I am right there with the person, because I understand. It may sound weird but I was grateful that I solidified my faith at the age of 16, having grown up in a non church-going family. I knew that I had made a personal choice; a decision that ma...

After a week of mild spring weather, a chill descended over Britain on this, my final day here. All day a gusty wind spun leaves into the air and sprayed us with rain. It didn't dampen my heart one bit though, I just have too much to be grateful for. Sleep seemed to have infused Mum with fresh energy and she woke up ready to get dressed and get going. Her appetite made its return today and she tackled the basic things she needs to be able to do, and did them. I clapped and cheered each victory! In the morning I popped over to the Sycamore Club to give her friends the latest news. I knew that they would want to know, they all love her over there. Her 94 year old friend, Trudy, said, "She doesn't say much, but we all miss her," and she gave me one of Mum's favourite magazines--the ones that have wildly bizarre "true life" stories--and a Cadbury's Easter egg filled with mini eggs, which she had won in the weekly raffle, saying, "I know she will lik...

The older I get, the fewer things I am sure of. You would think that with each successive year, more things would be securely nailed down, but I am becoming much more comfortable in saying, "I don't know," and thinking that is okay. I don't need to know everything. I remember with embarrassment some of the passionate and pompous pronouncements of my youth. I hope that now a little humility has pushed aside the certainty with which I held forth on certain subjects. It is a little disconcerting to be unsure of some things, but I believe it is part of the journey of discovering truth. I have some questions for God; I don't understand everything, but I do have some core certainties and they are enough for now. I don't believe that God is threatened by questions, and I do believe that there are answers. That is one of my core certainties. I turned on my car radio recently in the middle of a call-in show. The host identified himself as Jewish, and he was in dialogue...

This is the story of the "coming to faith" of a dear friend, Dave Hingsburger of Chewing the Fat . Thank you so much Dave, and welcome to Whatever He Says as a guest blogger. ********************************************************************************** I am a Christmas Christian. By this I do not mean that I come back to faith, yearly, like a salmon spawning. No, though my faith is strengthened by the rituals and the ceremony of the holidays, I am a year round believer. But I came to faith at Christmas. In fact I remember the exact moment that I met Jesus. A fat and ungainly child, a child of no promise in a home infused with violence, I did not love life, I feared it. Constant, unrelenting fear. Christmas was a time to be endured, gotten through, escaped. A holiday that, to me, resembled a drunken man laughing too loud in a bar, I despised the season. All I knew was that at some moment the stress of the season would break and then part of me would break or bruise...

In the spring of the year I turned 9, our family moved to Alvechurch, a small village in the heart of the Worcestershire countryside. The village school was Church of England and connected with the church of St. Laurence, which stood on a hill, keeping watch over the surrounding countryside; a silent guardian; as it had done for at least eight centuries. One day, into the flock of rosy cheeked English children, came a rare bird of exotic species; an American girl! She was a flamingo in a flock of starlings. We all wore school uniform.The boys wore short gray trousers, knee socks, shirts, ties and black blazers and we girls, either red and white, or blue and white striped cotton dresses, with cardigans or blazers. She looked so sophisticated when she arrived in a neat pleated green skirt and white sweater. And she spoke with an accent that we had heard on television but never in person! She was pretty, blond, with blue eyes, and she had an air of assurance and worldly wisdom about her. ...

On May 27th our cell group will be starting a 12 week course called The Truth Project, with Dr. Del Tackett ( http://www.thetruthproject.org/ ) We are bursting at the seams with people who wanted to participate. There is such a hunger for truth. It seems that there is a heart cry among people today, echoing the words of Pontius Pilate, who asked cynically, "What is truth?" In the first of 12 DVD's, Dr. Tackett challenges people to probe underlying assumptions behind statements generally accepted in our culture as being "right." Throughout the series he teaches participants to think, reason, and challenge commonly held assumptions and contrast them with truth as presented in God's Word. Reading The Spiritual Brain got me thinking a lot about assumptions, especially the part of the book outlining a study on prayer that had unexpected results. The study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery led the press to ridicule those who believed ...

Job 14:1-2 (New Living Translation) 1 “How frail is humanity! How short is life, how full of trouble! 2 We blossom like a flower and then wither. Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear. I thought it was a discarded piece of waste paper, and stooped to pick it up. I found that it wasn't paper, but a flower that had fallen from the lovely white orchid that is in full bloom in a pot on top of one of our bookcases. The flower had dried where it fell, but it was still beautiful, a fragile work of art. I examined it carefully, admiring the handiwork of God. I gently opened it to see the colours within; the purple and gold at the centre. It rustled in my fingers as I touched it and I held it to my ear to listen to the sound of the empty shell-flower. I couldn't bring myself to throw it away, so I put it on my kitchen window sill. Later that week three of us sat together after cell group, having a final cup of coffee of the evening. We had watched the Alpha DVD entitled, Does God ...

Dave, Asker of Good Questions, left this question in a comment a couple of days ago. It came as a result of reading a book about the reformation: "... one of the main points of contention was justification by faith alone or justification by faith and works (faith without works is dead). I've always loved the book of James in the NT but never hear it preached. So I admit to being a faith and works guy ... what say you oh wise women of Whatever He Says?" I'd love to hear what others have to say on this too, but it made me think about what I've been reading in The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. I love the way Pastor Nee sets things out systematically. He establishes a foundational point through scripture and then reinforces it several times over so that you really start to "get it," and when you have really "got it," he builds on the point as if he is building a great cathedral. The Normal Christian Life is a book about the two problems ma...

The guest worship leader came representing a well known ministry. He was gifted musically, playing the piano with casual ease but great skill, while talking, in between songs he'd written and recorded, about the children whose lives could be changed forever for the price of our North American coffee habit. His young wife ran the sound system at the back of the church, "Great with child," as he put it proudly; their first. They have been called to "live by faith," serving this ministry; he using his voice and talent to make a difference. But not on any pedestal, this young man. He talked of idols, of the constant personal temptation to be captivated by "stuff," or addictions; on-line shopping; this or that. I know how it goes. Nail one down addiction and the self life oozes out somewhere else. At the end, one of my younger friends met me at the back and said she'd sponsored a child. She said slightly nervously that she hoped she could manage it. In ...

The siren song of the wind was the first thing I heard this morning. It lifted its mournful voice in a loud wailing crescendo, as if to wake us up. My first thoughts were prayers, for those who have no warm bed, and whose night may have been on the street. The wind made me think of them. I am grateful for so much in my life. How do some people’s lives go so wrong? I thought of how much we have and how some have nothing at all, and I prayed again, for each person, faceless to me, but who has a face and a history to God. It’s funny what the wind can make you think of. In the bathroom, listening to the radio, a winter weather watch is issued. Tonight a snow storm and ice rain is predicted. I shiver, and hurry to prepare for the day. Now it is night and the predicted snow has not yet arrived; I’m grateful for that. Maybe it will pass us by. My prayers now are for a need that seems God sized in that we have run out of any human ways of meeting it. I lift it up to him and pray. I pray and I ...

1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 (New International Version) 19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good. The use of the metaphor of slavery to describe our relationship with God, prompted passionate discussion and, at least for me, a lot of thought. I learned that metaphorical language, if not relevant to the culture, becomes a barrier between people and God. If that's the case, we ought to examine our language. Even "church" can be a barrier--an obstacle people might trip over on the way to Christ. I don't mean The Church as the universal Body of Christ, but church with a small "c," in which we do things in certain ways that must look strange to a person coming in off the street. They might mistake "church" for Christianity and be forgiven for thinking that they have fallen in amongst weird people; people who strangely enough, turn into normal human beings the moment they leave t...

Exodus 14:14 (New International Version) 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." Psalm 46, in which is found that wonderful verse, "Be still and know that I am God," starts out saying that if things happen, such as the earth giving way, and mountains falling into the sea, then, be still. That's rather funny, because the last thing I tend to do when I am panicking about something is to be still. Well, there is another important part to the directive: "Be still-- and know that I am God." I'm starting to get it at last because of reading Watchman. It isn't a "being still" in the sense people intend when they say in a crisis, "I've got to centre myself;" meaning to focus on an inner core of peace. No, this is an entirely different type of stillness. This stillness is the utter peace of knowing that God the Giver, the Healer, the Provider and the Protector is the "doer," and the "mover." ...

I think of Jennie. I've thought about her a lot this week. Her radiant beauty...freckles and blue eyes, a ready smile that melts your heart...kind...loving...vibrant She would have been 11 on February 21st...now she will be forever 10. Jennie is with Jesus. We are here...pilgrims...the light of Christ, shining through us in these dark places of our globe. Each one with a purpose...a cog in the wheel of our Father's divine plan. Each one so loved...cherished by our Father, created in His image... Our days are numbered. Time finite. A gift. While we sojourn on this planet, we do the work that our Father has prepared beforehand that we should do. Jennie's work here is done. She was faithful...she is part of God's great plan...although no longer on this earth...yet she lives on...we will see her again...her family will be re-united again...their 'home going' so much more glorious...such a celebration. But for now they carry on...the spirit of Jennie, their memories,...